


we're gonna build a castle

by dansunedisco



Category: Veronica Mars (Movie 2014), Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Explicit Language, Family, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Navy, Navy Logan, Pre-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-02 23:50:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6588313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dansunedisco/pseuds/dansunedisco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“No, Dick, you can’t come visit me in Dubai.”</p><p>-</p><p>Two moments with Logan and Dick, and some introspection in-between.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we're gonna build a castle

**Author's Note:**

> i've been meaning to write more navy!logan, so... here's a quick thing ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

“Dude, what the fuck?”

“You’ll have to get a little more specific, Dick,” he says. He _tap-tap-taps_ his pen against his open textbook. He has a pretty good idea what the outburst is about, but with Dick -- well, you could never really, truly know.

“No, dude, don’t get all -- evasive and vague and shit,” Dick says. “Brad from Alpha Kappa just told me you, like, joined the freakin’ Army. _Dude_.”

He sighs. “You’ll be glad to hear that I didn’t, in fact, do that then. Brad’s an asshole.”

“Soooo you didn’t...”

He lifts his shoulder into a lazy shrug, but his heart is pounding. “I talked to a recruiter. Navy.”

Dick releases a breath like his whole world is going under. In a way, Logan thinks guiltily, that might not be so untrue. Beaver -- _Cassidy_ \-- is gone, dead. Senior’s in jail. The frat he joined isn’t really so much a brotherhood, but an excuse. It’s clear he doesn’t have much that matters anymore, and as much as the party-douche veneer stays on, Dick is smart enough to know this.

But Logan -- he can’t stay. He can’t linger. Not for Dick, not for anyone. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel. This long, dark tunnel that’s been his entire life, and he’s hurtling towards it as fast as his GPA can take him. He has less than a year to graduation, and it’s the unknown future, the _after_ , that tightens his stomach up more than anything else. He needs an out. He needs a solid win. And, for once, something larger than himself is offering it. That something wants _him._

“Don’t you have to, like, have a clean record or whatever?” Dick asks after a long moment, and joins Logan on the couch. He reaches for the Xbox controller and starts a new round of Halo. It’s not acceptance, but it’s a start. “You’ve been in jail,” he flicks his fingers up one by one, counting silently, “ _a lot_.”

Logan shrugs. He’s never been _convicted_ of a crime. That’s the sticking point. His saving grace, if you will. _Accused_ , sure, but who hasn’t in good ol’ Neptune? “Didn’t seem to be a problem.”

Dick laughs suddenly, and Master Chief tumbles off an alien ledge. “Dude,” he says, “you’re gonna be in the military, what the _fuck_.”

For the first time in days, Logan cracks a smile.

What the fuck, indeed.

 

-

 

It’s easy. It _should_ be easy.

Show up on time (if you’re early, you’re on time; if you’re on time, you’re late; if you’re late, you’re fucked); look your best; shine your shoes; get a haircut every two weeks; learn the directives, the manuals, the black and white that literally tells you when and how you’re expected to wash your own ass. Stay fit. Do your curl-ups, your push-ups, and run, run, run. Don’t salute sloppy. They’ll respect you less. Listen to your chief. They know shit, because _you_ don’t know shit. Obey the orders of those appointed over you; uphold the constitution. You take this appointment freely, without reservation. Make your country proud. Make your momma proud.

It’s easy on paper. But we all know how that goes.

 

-

 

He’s smart. He’s a smart _ass_. He’s F.U.N.K for six months (“fuck you new kid”; it’s a rite of passage, or so they say), and then he’s Mouth.

They can iron a lot of the creases out -- and god, how they try -- but they can’t get them all. Not the stuff that’s ground down into your fingerprints, your pores, and he’s not anything if not a variation of a mouth, through and through, since the day he was born.

And so the story of his call sign goes like this:

It’s a bright, beautiful day. Or they’re crossing the Atlantic and the bow of the carrier is cutting into the ocean, the roll subtle enough to give him a headache. Either way, the setting doesn’t matter, not really, because the backdrop is just a placeholder for the build-up and the punchline.

So someone’s talking, and he’s quipping, and they say, “God dammit, Echolls, will you ever quit mouthing off?”

“Not until the day I die, sir,” is something he might’ve said, but he can’t be sure. There’s no such thing as verbatim in a sea story. All he _really_ knows is that some jackwagon called him Mouth after the brief, because someone always has to be funny, always, and Mouth stuck.

First off, fuck that guy.

Second, it’s not much of a story, but it’s good for a laugh or a character piece. “They deserve to know who they’re getting,” his last CO says, but it’s -- fond. He says it _fondly_ because, dammit, they’re gonna miss his smart assed one-liners when he’s gone.

Still, fuck that guy.

 

-

 

“No, Dick, you can’t come visit me in Dubai.”

The Skype connection freezes on Dick’s belligerently offended expression for a beat, and then audio skips back, “ -- the point of you being in _Dubai_ if I can’t come visit?”

 _I’m best friends with this guy_ , he thinks. _This is my primary next of kin. The guy in charge of my remains._ Should he be laughing? Worried?

“We can hit up Wild Wadi’s, drive the new Lambo, see the palm,” Dick continues, and then sighs wistfully, “mingle with all the foreign babes.”

Logan turns his camera around. It gives Dick a snapshot of the feral cats roaming around the mall -- scrappy, angry, and plentiful. _Where the fuck did all these cats come from, seriously._ “This is all the pussy you’re gonna get around here.”

“Oh shit! _Nice_ one, bro. Wait. Can you say ‘pussy’ in Dubai?”

Logan groans. He’s saved from explaining that Sex and the City isn’t where a person should get their education of Dubai by the bus that swings around to pick his group up, and he bids Dick goodbye. They play a semi-ironic game of ‘no, you hang up’, and Logan thinks it’s almost -- _almost_ \-- like having a wife.

 _This is my life now_ , he thinks. And honestly? It’s kind of great.


End file.
